Maple Leaf Forever! - Canadian 2019 Women’s World Cup Preview Part 1: The Rest of the Group

The Women’s World Cup happens every four years, and soccer teams change a lot in that time. Comparing one World Cup team to the previous World Cup team is just the sort of lazy, valueless sportswriting that is typical of women’s soccer but informs nobody about anything.

So comparing Canada’s group in 2015 to that in 2019 is obviously insane, but in fairness, the soccer gods really really want me to.

In 2015 Canada, who were not really one of the best six teams in world women’s soccer, were seeded A1 for the World Cup draw because we were the host country. As a result we got a softball group of us, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and China; no minnows but three teams we should beat most of the time. We won one, drew two, didn’t concede, won the thing; not fun, but effective. In the round of 16 we beat Switzerland in a really good game, then lost in the quarter-final when our depleted defensive depth finally caught up to us and the odd break didn’t go our way.

In 2019 Canada might be one of the best six teams in world women’s soccer and the FIFA gods smiled upon us, placing us in Pot 1 for the draw on merit1. As a result Canada was placed in a group with New Zealand, the Netherlands, and, um, Cameroon.

Saw he was not in the 18 again for his club's game today and looked a bit and found he played in a first team-heavy reserve match in the week.
"FC Midtjylland had a number of first-team players. In addition to the mentioned goal scorers were Søren Reese, Manjrekar James, Paulinho and Junior Brumado."
https://www.tipsbladet.dk/nyhed/superliga/oplaeg-og-et-maal-marcondes-var-flyvende-i-uofficiel-fcm-debut
Probably should have left if he is interested in playing first team minutes. But who knows what his thoughts are.

Sept 11th has been revised upwards. It was showing as 1200 the day after the game after 2043 had initially been the number released to the media including the Times Colonist. Hope you are not going to try to seriously claim that the stadium was around half full for that game and the FCE one as it was when numbers like that were being announced earlier in the season.
The problem for the league right now is that there have been a whole string of games where attendance has looked unusually sparse. That's what happens when you neglect to have playoffs and you have a runaway leader for that second championship place and no relegation to keep things interesting at the bottom.
Winding this back to the subject matter of the thread given that sort of backdrop and how difficult it is to find suitable stadia having more than 16 teams and how to accomodate them is unlikely to be an issue the league will face any time soon. I suspect they are a lot more concerned right now over whether season ticket holders who have stopped showing up will renew now the novelty factor and the initial wave of enthusiasm have worn off.

Yeah it's good system. At least the youngsters get to pay a lot. Most of the lower-league clubs are happy to get these kids!
I think Zanatta got a bit out of luck after giving it another shot at Hearts, it then being a bit late in the season for most clubs. Now he signed with a lesser club than he could have IMO.
Still he's getting a lot of mileage in the Scottish leagues!

Froese started and played 71 minutes for Saarbrücken, which lost 0-2 to Bayern Alzenau. The first loss of the season (in 8 games). Saarbrücken immediately lost their top spot to tiny club TSV Steinbach.
Gabriel Boakye entered in the 60 minute for Köln II, which went 0-3 to Borussia Dortmund II.